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A wrongly interpreted punctuation mark meant police investigating Stephen Lawrence's murder did not realise a crucial piece of evidence had been found close to the scene for more than 20 years, detectives have admitted.

An undated handout picture obtained from the Metropolitan Police shows murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence who was stabbed to death in south London in 1993.Credit:
AFP/Getty Images

Police have now discovered the strap was actually found just 4.5 metres (14.7ft) away from a pool of Mr Lawrence's blood and eight metres (26.2ft) away from his bag.

Officers believe it may have been part of a weapon used to fatally injure the student as he waited for a bus in Eltham, south east London, in April 1993. Chris Le Pere, the senior investigating officer, said it was similar to a homemade weapon found in the home of David Norris, one of the men convicted of the murder.

The admission comes amid an investigation into alleged police corruption in relation to the murder inquiry, which was launched by the National Crime Agency (NCA) last year and is still ongoing.

Police have now discovered the strap was actually found just 4.5 metres away from a pool of the victim's blood Credit:
Metropolitan Police

It also came as the Metropolitan Police revealed on BBC’s Crimewatch that they are offering £20,000 to anyone that can provide information that leads to a successful prosecution.

The episode of Crimewatch, which aired at 9pm last night, also contained an interview with Stephen's father Neville as well as the first reconstruction of the attack, showing a gang of six men attacking the teenager before sprinting away.

Mr Le Pere said the location of the strap was correctly identified by the scene examiner in his notes in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

The change was introduced by a somebody else at a later stage after they were tasked to write the examiner’s statement because he was out of the country.

Mr Le Pere explained: “The punctuation [from the scene examiner’s notes] hadn’t been read correctly. He described a strap being at the scene on Dickson Road and then the next exhibit is found outside number 290 Well Hall Road and they have joined those two exhibits thinking they are both outside number 290.”

A scene photograph taken after the April 1993 attackCredit:
Metropolitan Police

The examiner then signed the statement without noticing the error because his notes were not to hand.

Despite reviews and investigations into the case - including in 2002, when five swabs were taken from the bag - the mistake was not uncovered until 2014 when Mr Le Pere’s team reviewed the evidence.

The 66cm-long strap has now been swabbed 70 times. As well as the female profile, several partial male DNAs have also been discovered, although there is not enough information to take these any further.

“I believe this did not belong to Stephen, I believe it has been left at the scene by the suspects,” Mr Le Pere said. “It is known that David Norris… had an adapted offensive weapon with a hammer head at the end of a strap. I am exploring that it might have also been an adapted offensive weapon.”

A graphic showing where the strap was found in relation to the bloodCredit:
Metropolitan Police

Mr Le Pere insisted it was an “honest” and “innocent” error, and said he would be happy to disclose any lines of inquiry to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. “In my judgement there is no misconduct involved in this,” he added.

He said the unknown woman was not being treated as a suspect but instead as a potentially crucial witness. Officers are also exploring whether the bag was stolen and are completing DNA testing in a bid to identify the woman.